A key component of CRM systems are the addresses of the people and organisations that are held within them. The address is a key means of profiling someone, mailing them and identifying possible duplicate records.   The main areas for a CRM system include Marketing, Sales and Customer Service all of which a reliant on an up to date and accurate address.

The solution that most CRM systems adopt for ensuring the quality of an address is by using the Post Office Address File (PAF®) in packages such as Quick Address and CapScan to lookup and populate addresses or verify them.

This approach has some limitations that are outlined below:

• The addresses held in PAF® become out of date quickly. They need constant updating which is something that typically happens only sporadically and usually needs the intervention of IT people.

• Although the addresses are held in PAF®, they are then copied to the CRM system’s store as well, thereby duplicating data.

• A change in the PAF® through an update will not automatically update the address held in the CRM system which will consequently be out of date.

• The address for the person or company will also be held in other systems such as eCommerce, accounting and purchasing systems. All of these systems will probably hold different versions of the same address and compound the issue of keeping them up to date.

The AddressBase products are very different, with a completeness and accuracy that far exceeds PAF®. Because the core addresses are created and maintained by local authorities, who are statutorily responsible for all planning and street naming, all new builds and changes to properties will be available in the AddressBase products far sooner than they will be in any other dataset.

Using the AddressBase products is only part of the CRM solution though and in the same way that a CRM system should be the central master source for contact and organisation information, you should ensure that all addresses data is centrally sourced from a specialist system, which you can achieve through the use of Symphony SinglePoint. By adopting this approach, all or most of the issues outlined above can be addressed.

The CRM will have links to the addresses via web services, which means any address change is automatically shown in the CRM system without any intervention needing to take place. The web services can also be used to make an ultra quick search on nationwide address data when searching for a new address.

Symphony SinglePoint’s cross reference handling capability can also be used by systems like CRM to link to other systems such as accounting or eCommerce.